"To start with, all one can do is try to name things, one by one, flatly, enumerate them, count them, and in the most straightforward way possible, in the most precise way possible, trying not to leave anything out." - George Perec
The choreographer Annie-B Parson (David Byrne's American Utopia) names the above quote as one that inspires how she looks at performance. As an artist, she's interested in surfaces—the literal, physical forms that exist on stage—and has always sketched her own work after she's finished making it. New York Magazine Theater critic Helen Shaw told us about Annie-B's drawing habit, so we decided to do a 3-in-1 with original illustrations as responses. For our 3-in-1s, three individuals with unique, distinct perspectives gather to see a show together. They can respond as a collective (via a conversation) or as individuals (via separate submitted pieces).
Stay tuned for more accompanying drawings by visual/performance artists!
Response One: Annie-B Parson
Take a look at Annie-B's response to Jess Barbagallo's show. Paul Lazar (Annie-B's husband and Jess' frequent collaborator) thinks of Jess as a son of Molière. With that in mind, Annie-B created a family tree for Jess, imagining where his work comes from. There's sadness, but also sitcom and soap opera. There's narrative and social critique, but with pointed, high-end writing. With this drawing, Annie-B creates a literal frame from which we can see the work through her eyes. She's sitting next to it, not judging it, starting with "What do you see?" "What is your response?" This is really all we want from criticism: What did you see? What is your response?
Response Two: James Allister Sprang
Sitting in the concrete bunker-like lower theater of Abrons, alongside the whimsy of Jess's work, it made sense to approach this experimental 'review' through contour line drawing. A stripped-down process of finding the edges of a subject with line and a commitment to how the mind fixes the impressionistic moving contour of a shape. The chroma of Weekend at Barry’s/Lesbian Lighthouse and its vibrant polaroid characters pulled me into a vivid nostalgic reverie of the verdant queer Downtown I was once so deeply entrenched in. A nomad now based in Philadelphia, I was reminded of a Downtown we can all now return to. While bringing the color with us.
Response Three: Suzanne Bocanegra
I'm not sure why—but somewhere along the way—it occurred to me that if you combine the aesthetic of Cezanne's bathers with the TV sitcom Gilligan's Island you get Weekend at Barry's/Lesbian Lighthouse.
I've always loved those Cezanne paintings. Those figures are so oddly drawn—and so compelling precisely because they're so oddly drawn—and I don't really understand what the heck everyone's doing in them.
And who can possibly say what was happening on that island of Gilligan's? But I never could stop watching those reruns.
Ergo, I went in and out of understanding everything that was going on in this play.
But that was AOK by me.
It kept me looking.
